Tuesday January 30, 2018

Listen, friends, as tones evoke a cosmos. Let them bring to thee word of Wade Davis’s The Serpent and the Rainbow. One can retrace Davis’s footsteps with an episode of Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia called “Investigating the Haitian Zombie.” Maroons, Bizangos, revolutionaries, secret societies: this one has it all. Stoner blank parody of Western imperialist gentleman scientist exotica. Let us also save for later a dose of Hildegard von Bingen. Listening, one pictures colors streaming from a neck. Senses arrive as packets or parcels. A mossy wooden bench passes in and out of view to the left of me, the moon to my right. On days like these, I stare across my classrooms wondering if I’m speaking to bicameral minds. Their gazes digital in a way that seems vaguely reptilian. Is capital a god who whispers to students as I speak?